Thank You
by ReddAlice
Summary: Duo is drowning; he's still convinced he's in love with Wufei after 7 years of physical and mental abuse. Through the plagued relationship Duo's best friend has always been there. Heero... however... his patience is wearing thin with Wufei.


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**Author's** **Note**: Regardless of the heartening song it's written too, this fic is pretty sad. ^-~ I couldn't decide on an ending so it may seem a bit indecisive. Back tracking in italics! Please, read, review, and rate. Thank you all for your support and taking the time to e-mail and review my stories! I love you guys! Now on with THANK YOU !! (A song by Dido, a fic by ReddAlice)

******THANK YOU******

Heero was looking at him again, his unusually soft padded hand curving to the shape of Duo's cheek.   
  
Duo hardened his expression and turned his face away. He wouldn't cry, he wouldn't torment himself into a bawl of shuddering sobs on the floor...  He was stronger then that, he was a Soldier. Soldiers aren't meant to fall in love, Heero had told him that once, what seemed like a long time ago, and Gundam Pilots are incapable of it. Was that true in Wufei's case?  
  
Wufei's innate inculcating character was stiff, nurturing at times, but the drilling fists he used to teach Duo his ways where wrong where agonizing. But he did it because he 'loved' Duo, right? Heero just couldn't see that...   
  
"Duo... daizyoobu ka?" The delicate way he said it made Duo's heart fall into his stomach, or further even yet, his groin. The neglected want he held for his friend was revolting under circumstance, he had been rejected in body by the man he had been with, 'lived with', for seven years one two many times. This time, he needed someone to heal him before he returned to the battery he swore was love.  
  
"H-Heero... " 

**-My tea's gone cold, I wondering why I got out of bed at all  
The morning rain clouds up my window and I can't see at all-**

_Duo's head lolled to the side, his tattered body slouched in the corner of his bedroom. His eye twitched, and he licked the blood from his swelling bottom lip. When did he become so weak? When did he love anyone this much? _

_Uninflected by his own wounds, Duo looked up, teetering love and dread in his eyes. He shouldn't have gone out anyways, he knew Wufei was having problems with Lady Une and would want him there when he got home. Why was he always so stupid? Why couldn't he just do one thing right for Wufei? _

_Running a hand back through his damp tousled hair, Duo felt his body involuntarily shudder with tears. "W-why...  can't I do anything right for you?"_

_"Everyday...  I ask myself the same thing." Duo heard Wufei sneer, his footsteps beating the floor as he walked from the room, and slammed the door.  
  
_

**-And even if I could it'd all be gray, but your picture on my wall  
It reminds me that it's not so bad, it's not so bad-**  
  


_The bang rattled the apartment walls knocking a photo off it's hook with an ear splitting shatter, a sound that for a moment drowned out Duo's crying. Filling his strained lungs with a shaky breath, Duo scooped the lone photo out of the debris of glass. _

_The shadows of his heart parted briefly seeing a young self draped over his best friend of 11 years, since he was 16 the Zero pilot had been there for him, regardless of how 'well' they got along. Heero was sitting with a fixed look on his face, his face set with it's usual monotone mask, however, in his azure eyes there was a fierce candid sparkle. For just a split second, under that tree, a moment captured by Quatre, they had been free of all their past and unbound to their futures. That second in each other's arms was worth a lifetime of pain.  Flashes like those...  where worth learning how to behave so he could spend time with his friends._

**-I drank too much last night, got bills to pay, my head just feels in pain-**  
  


_Duo covered the his mouth and receiver with his hands to muffle his voice, "H-_Heero_?"_

_"Duo? _Are _you okay?"_

_"Heero, come and get me...  please...  _please_... " Duo felt his intoxicated body trembling in unregistered pain. In another room could hear the voices, they where speaking of an irate Chinese man looking for his boyfriend, his lecherous lover who had ran off to a club and mistakenly called home for a ride. "I-I... "_

_"Where are you?" His attitude was calm, but urgent. "_Duo_?" Heero's tone was rising._

_A voice came from outside the line, "Duo." _

_... It was Wufei... The phone was snatched from Duo's grip, and the receiver swung down into the side of his temple, leaving him on the cold floor quite, and inebriated from a different sort of drug. _

**-I missed the bus and there'll be hell today, I'm late for work again-**

_Walking in, Duo checked most reflective surfaces to make sure his bandage wasn't overly noticeable. It was just a laceration from an umbrella, nothing Shinigami couldn't fix with tissue and surgical tape._ _"Hey guy's sorry I'm late!" He walked into the office with an abnormal lethargy about his pace, something not too obvious to the untrained eye. _

_"Good Morning." Wufei was short behind him caught up in the rush of the day's paper work, files to write, cases to close, and bad guys to jail. Taking a final sip of his coffee, and setting it on a random desk, the Asian Preventer locked himself in his office. _  
  


_Duo strolled over to his friend's desk, grinning, his dimmed face imperceptibly gray. "Hey, Heero, how's it going?"_

_The eyes that met his were that of an incensed man, a well-concealed fury boiling behind they cerulean pools.  "I thought you said you where going to call to let me know you got home from Quatre's okay?"_

_A knot rose in Duo's stomach, "You know Wufei, he just couldn't keep his hands off me all the way home. Nothing you wanna hear."_

_"I can _see _that." Heero interjected, his voice as sharp as the tip on the black parasol he had an unfortunate incident that very morning with._

_Ashamed, and frightened over what Heero might do provoked, Duo shrank back towards his own office, a room adjoined to his boyfriend's. "Ya' know, stuff to do, people to harass. Talk to you later man!"_

**-And even if I'm there, they'll all imply that I might not last the day-  
  
**

_The rumors had picked up again; they were all talking about his relationship with Heero. They were just friend's, they had never in this life time be anything else. With all this, how was he going to explain himself to Wufei? He had tripped, and like a good friend, not a gay God of grace (like Heero was envisioned to be prone to be), he had caught him._

_They stayed a moment longer then they should have in the embrace, chest to chest, Duo's face buried in the curve of Heero's neck. For an instant it had been-_

_The room chilled, and Wufei stepped in, inaudibly closing the door behind him. Something was off in his black eyes, that something human in his expression was gone, maybe dead; and in its place was an envious creature._

_"What's this about Heero?" He asks a little too evenly, the skin on his face pulled straight._

_Duo smiled and shrugged, "Stupid people, they think they saw something. I fell and Heero caught me, it must have looked like-"_

_Wufei was laughing, "Like a what? I saw it, Maxwell...  I saw you two holding each other. I don't like liars... " He drawled beginning to close the space between them with deliberate slothfulness. _

_"I-I'm not ly-" Off the handle, Wufei's hand swung back into Duo's jaw, leaving a red print on his cheek. _

_"Duo, you are so pathetic, and that's all you'll ever be. A pathetic, whore! I can't believe I let you stay here with me! I don't need you-...  like you need me! And all you do to repay me and my hospitality is spit it back up in my face!"_

_"S-s-spit what?" Duo sputtered flattening himself into the wall, wanting to disappear._

_"You and your stupid little affairs...  and now...  and now with _Heero_? I was capable of moving on knowing nothing of the guys you laid down for, the men you sucked off while I was working to keep you in a nice place. But Heero?"_

_"I didn't do-" -Whack-_

_"_Don't lie to me_!" _

_Duo was crying, choking on his own saliva.  "I'm _not_, Wufei... "_

_"Liar!"_

**-And then you call me and it's not so bad, it's not so bad and-  
  
**

_Duo whipped the sweat from his brow and rolled over, he was alone in his bed, and Wufei hadn't come home yet. Checking the clock, he sighed feeling redundantly dejected, or rather, rejected. It was 3 am. _

_He idly wondered why he woke up until he noticed the hushed rattling of his cell phone on vibrate on the floor, it was lightly clacking against the side of his bed stand. How long had it been ringing? 20 minutes?_

_"_Hello_?"_

_"Duo?" The voice was soft, a little anxious sounding. It was Heero._

_"This _is _Duo's phone, so this _would _be Duo speaking now, wouldn't it?"___

_There was a long moment of silence, and finally Heero took in a short breath ignoring Duo's comment. "Can I come over? I want to-...  talk to you."_

_Lying back down, Duo found himself nodding with a silent affirmation._

_"Duo?"_

_Duo smirked, "Yeah...  come over."_

**-I want to thank you for giving me the best day of my life  
Oh just to be with you is having the best day of my life-**

_Setting the coffee in front of his guest, Duo sat down on the other side of the coffee table, he didn't feel the need to talk, the silence...  Heero's company was enough for him. To his own pleasure, he found himself grinning._

_"Duo... " Heero's eyes where transfixed with his curtains, he was avoiding eye contact with him. Just then a few details about his appearance became more and more apparent. Things he should have noticed right away. Marks a good friend would have realized._

_A thin-crusted line split his lip, a few bruises just below his ear, a tear in the sleeve of shirt, and a few dirt smudges on his blue jeans. "Heero, _what _the hell happened?!" Duo bolted up right and traversed a few pieces of furniture in one smooth flying motion to get to the couch his friend sat on._

_Duo grit his teeth, angry tears threatening to murder his composure. "Heero... " A few images flashed in his mind as he found himself caressing the livid skin with the soft of his fingers. He was too old to be crying._

_"I went looking for Wufei." Heero said, and for some reason, Duo had suspected it would be something like that. He waited a minute to allow his news to be absorbed by the tired mind. "I found him at the office...  We had a _dispute_."_

_A thick orb of illness climbed up in Duo's throat, "Is...  is he okay?"_

_Heero roared around pinning Duo under him, "How can you ask that!?" He shouted, his voice quaking with fury as he pressed Duo into the couch cushions with his full body weight. "How can you care after what he does to you?"_

_"Get off me!" Duo yelled unable move, the skin of his arms becoming discolored immediately under Heero's fingertips.  "You're hurting me!"_

_Instantaneously Heero relaxed his hold without allowing Duo to stir, a look of coagulated remorse coating his face. "He's a little roughed up...  but he's fine." For a long moment he seemed to be starring right through Duo's shaking form. When his eyes refocused he looked away, "How can you love him...  after what he does to you?" _

_"I-... " All the blame projected towards him faded with confusion. "It's not Wufei, it's me, he...  He loves me." He said, a phrase he had practiced in his head thousands of times before he left for work with welts on his pale skin._

_"No! It's not you...  how can you think that? That's not love, Duo! Soldiers aren't meant to love, their meant to kill, and Gundam pilots are incapable of the first and repeatedly do the second." Heero said unflinching._

_Duo gave a defiant glare, "_I love_." The appearance was unmistakable, Heero looked ambivalent, a parade of emotions trampling his already cut up face. "Heero, don't you love?"_

_Like he had been burned, Heero let go and stood up off the sofa._

_Too weak to move, Duo laid there, Heero's phantom body still pressed against him, his veins on fire. When did that happen? He wondered absently, other more prominent thoughts fighting for his attention. _

_"I'll see you tomorrow... " Wufei, for now, was forgotten._

_"Heero!"_

_His best friend stopped, his hand on the knob of the door. "Yes?"_

_Duo rolled his head to look at him, the image skewed and on it's side through a blur of frustration misting his eyes. "Heero...  don't _you _love me?" Maybe... _

_Heero's head lowered, and he turned around to fasten Duo with a look of bewilderment, but somewhere in those amazing navy eyes, was love._

_Duo stood up from the couch, his smile back on his face, and walked backed to his bedroom to go to sleep, satisfied with the answer, he left Heero to his thoughts._

  
-**Push the door, I'm home at last and I'm soaking through and through**-

_His flesh stung bitterly, like the thoughts of Wufei in his heart. After Heero had left, Wufei had come home, waking him up from his partial sleep with vice like hands around his throat, his silver revolver lying on the pillow. Wufei had been drunk, and in his smashed state, unnaturally strong, even for him. _

_A stroke of luck allowed him an opening to throw the drunkard off balance, and escape._

_Wincing, Duo drug his numb arm up and knocked on Heero's door, for one night... _one day_...  let it be all right._

**  
-Then you handed me a towel and all I see is you -**

_The look of horror on Heero's face was alarming, in one thorough advance, Heero had Duo in his arms and inside. "Daizyoobu ka?!"_

_"Un...  Ima...  Daizyoobu da yo." Duo managed with a tired slight of voice._

****

****

****

**-And even if my house falls down now, I wouldn't have a clue-**

"H-Heero... " Duo reached up with all his strength left and pulled Heero's hand down from his cheek, bringing their beaten lips together in a kiss.

Duo hadn't expected to be pushed away, but the acceptance and warmth in his mouth directed towards him was disarming. Genuinely blissful, Duo liquefied into the hold he initiated, feeling remorse towards Wufei, and an unrivaled need concentrated on Heero. 

With a sudden certainty of the situation, Duo ran his hands up under Heero's shirt, feeling the reaction against him. When a strangle moan escape their kiss, Duo laughed noiselessly breaking their mouths apart; his fingers curling against Heero's taut stomach.

There where tears in Heero's endlessly blue eyes, "I... " Heero wrapped his arms around him, pulling the smaller into his body with a deep unsteady breath. "I _can't _watch you be hurt anymore, I won't...  I wanted to tell you that the other night." His eloquence was mesmerizing, they where words Duo had been wanting to hear for years, he hadn't known and never would have guessed, they would ever come from Heero.

Duo placed his head in the soft angle of Heero's neck, distantly recalling how Heero had caught him and allowed him to linger like that under the scrutinizing eyes of the office. "Duo...  I've wanted you for such a long time...  since...  you came and got me that one evening when we where kids. You saved me.. I want to save _you_ now too."

The thought made him snicker, that tough young soldier held to the examination table by clamps. Duo had busted him out from under Oz's obnoxious grasp. That was a long time ago, when he was just 15 years old. 12 Years later...  well it didn't seem like that long, really.

Duo found himself looking up, the words falling from his lips helplessly. "You can have me." The arms that tightened around him where an experience of their own, a type of passionate possessiveness he had never experienced. He wanted more...  and he would have it.

  
**-Because you're near me and...-**

It was well into the next evening when Duo pulled himself from the entanglement of limbs and sheets with lament. He could have stayed there forever had he not fell into a dream of Wufei, the look on his face when his suspicions where all confirmed. The thought of being finally cast off by his lover of 7 years was too much to bear. He couldn't be happy when the man who had taken care of him, and loved him for such a long time, was miserable.

In his concentration not to arouse his partner from his well-earned sleep, he failed to notice the concealed hurt in Heero's half closed eyes as he silently watched Duo leave the room from under his lashes.

Shutting the door behind him as he left the cozy little apartment, Duo was confronted by a cold hysterical howling of laughter. Wufei was sitting in the hall, his eyes red rimmed and his face gaunt. "I knew it, I _knew _you lied." He shook his head.

"Wufei... " Had his dream been him subconsciously aware of Wufei's presence? Had he watched them in Heero's room? A shudder passed through him.

Wufei seemingly sobered, instantly up right and stalking towards Duo. "Don't 'Wufei' me... " He cried, a sob strangling his voice. "How could you? Right after saying...  promising me...  that it was all a rumor. What kind of bastard are you?" Wufei scoffed shaking his head and looking away, his hands delicately placed in the pockets of his jacket. "You're a looser, I knew that, and I pitied you. I wanted you, and you slapped me away." -His choice of words where ironic. "You don't deserve someone like me."

Duo stepped back against the door his hand searching for the knob slowly. The anger that had been subdued in him long enough begging to surface. "You hit _me_." Why hadn't he realized this before? "_You _don't deserve _me_, Wufei!" Duo heard himself yell with the epiphany that brought him unparalleled relief.

Wufei stared him down, his mouth twisting in an unrecognizable emotional display. Gently he brought his hand up to Duo's shoulder, and lightly brought it down his arm. The gesture sent chills down Duo's spine, and aroused him to his own repugnance. 

"Duo... "

The strange performance was frightening, and Duo felt the emergency rising, he needed to put that door between then before-... a gunshot. "If I can't have you, no one will." It was a scream that sounded like a whisper in his ears.

Duo swallowed his own blood and spit, the world falling into dark shades of gray and blackening before him. In the darkness, he heard another gunshot the resonated with a slowing beat of his heart. Wufei...  had shot him... and then himself. 

"Heero... " Duo garbled smiling numbly, he got Heero out of this whole mess, and it was too bad they couldn't let the day go on as it had. He should have stayed in bed today... 

"_Duo!_" He felt Heero's familiar arms pulling at him, dragging his sagging body into his lap. Just the feel of his body made everything...  so much easier. 

Heero's voice faded in vein with the roaring in Duo's head, the world bleeding into his wound, where exactly he wasn't sure, he couldn't feel anything. For some reason he felt overwhelmingly free, the weight of his false inadequacies evaporating, and he was solely grateful for their brief experience.

Befitting of him, he drifted soundly asleep, the best sleep he had had in almost a decade. One day couldn't rectify seven years of neglect, but one moment with Heero had made it all worth it. 

  
**-I want to thank you for giving me the best day of my life  
  
**

----**Japanese Note**----

^-~

There is no real correct way to spell out Japanese words in English, so there are many official forms to do so. The one I use is not very familiar to the public, it's called JSL, oppose to the one everyone is use to seeing: Hepburn. The Japanese themselves when spelling their native language with romanzi actually use a combination of several different styles. So far, I've taken a year of Japanese, not a lot in reality, but I am still dedicated and will be continuing it this fall. 

"Daizyoobu ka?" -A very informal way of asking if someone is okay. "Are you alright?" It's called direct style, and is used amongst close relations. 

"Un." -A direct style noise of affirmation

"Ima."-It means now.

...SO....

"Ima Daizyoobu da yo." Is - "I'm okay now." 

----**_END _of Japanese Note**----

**End Note: **Much longer than my previous song fic closer, and not half as good, but it's all right for what it was. I spent all day toying with the song in my head, and no matter how cheery the lyrics I kept thinking of the same idea. So here it is folks, THANK YOU (a song by Dido). Please, read, rate and review. If there are any heinous errors you'd be good enough to point out, I'd much appreciate it. I do re-read my fics, several times in fact so they're not rigid and blocky...  but though English is my native language I am lacking necessary grammar skills. I'm learning though, thanks to all of you for your support and e-mails. (RE-EDITED...AGAIN...JULY 9th, 2003)

**If you want something a bit more troubling, and very angsty...  go check out my other song-ish like fic CLOSER...  it got raving reviews from other sites and archives lurkers.**


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